The problem, he tells New Day, is that he'd never seen the word "curio" before and was so stressed out about correctly pronouncing it that corner "came out corno."

Some accounts on the Web make it sound as if Atkinson was about to be a $1 million winner. That's not true, he says: "It would have [still] been a five- or six-step process to get the $1 million."

Is he angry at the folks who produce Wheel? No. He's only angry at himself, Atkinson says.

Last month, Jeopardy ruled that a 12-year-old Connecticut boy was wrong when he wrote "What is the Emanciptation Proclamation?" instead of "What is the Emancipation Proclamation?" The clue was "Abraham Lincoln called this document, which took effect in 1863, 'a fit and necessary war measure.' "